Artemis II The most important stories for you to know today NASA astronauts could be just days away from blasting off towards the moon for the first time since 1972. As soon as Wednesday, a four-person crew could launch on a mission to fly around the moon in an Orion capsule that's currently perched at the top of a 322-foot, orange-and-white rocket waiting at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew's first launch opportunity will come on April 1, at 6:24 p.m EDT. Mission managers have several more launch opportunities through April 6. If their trip goes as planned, it will be the first time that a woman, a person of color, and a non-American will venture out around the moon. During a briefing, mission managers said that launch preparations were going smoothly and they were not dealing with any technical issues that might threaten a Wednesday attempt.This will be the first launch in NASA's Artemis moon program that includes a crew. Astronauts will first orbit Earth so that they can check out key systems on their spacecraft, including life support, communication, and navigation. If everything goes as planned, they'll send themselves on a looping figure-eight path around the moon and back. It will take several days to get out to the moon, and the entire mission is expected to last about ten days. If their trip goes as planned, it will be the first time that a woman, a person of color, and a non-American will venture out around the moon.NASA astronauts could be just days away from blasting off towards the moon for the first time since 1972, when Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan took his last steps in the gray lunar dust. As soon as Wednesday, a four-person crew could launch on a mission to fly around the moon in an Orion capsule that's currently perched at the top of a 322-foot, orange-and-white rocket waiting at Kennedy Space Center in Florida., the NASA mission's commander, during a briefing with reporters on Sunday. He said that it was"surreal" to drive out to the launch pad and see this massive rocket. The crew's first launch opportunity will come on April 1, at 6:24 p.m EDT. Mission managers have several more launch opportunities through April 6.If their trip goes as planned, it will be the first time that a woman, a person of color, and a non-American will venture out around the moon.During a briefing, mission managers said that launch preparations were going smoothly and they were not dealing with any technical issues that might threaten a Wednesday attempt.This will be the first launch in NASA's Artemis moon program that includes a crew. Over three years ago, during the Artemis I test flight in November and December of 2022, NASA put an Orion capsule through its paces without astronauts on board. That capsule went on a looping trip around the moon that lasted over three weeks and covered over a million miles before splashing back down in the Pacific. This time around, the astronauts will first orbit Earth so that they can check out key systems on their spacecraft, including life support, communication, and navigation. If everything goes as planned, they'll fire their vehicle's propulsion system to send themselves on a looping figure-eight path around the moon and back, a deep space journey that will take them more than 230,000 miles away from Earth. It will take several days to get out to the moon, and the entire mission is expected to last about ten days. The closest they'll come to the moon is about 4,000 to 6,000 miles above the lunar surface, as they swing behind the moon and briefly lose contact with mission controllers. At that distance, according to NASA, the moon will appear to be about the size of a basketball held at arm's length, with the distant blue Earth beyond it.This mission is a key step towards an eventual moon landing that will support NASA's goal of establishing a permanent lunar presence, including a moon base, with the help of international partners. But work on critical hardware — most importantly, the landing vehicle — remains incomplete, although NASA has been pushing to speed up its two lunar lander contractors, SpaceX and Blue Origin. NASA officials now plan to test out one or both landers in Earth's orbit before trying to press on with a lunar landing attempt. To do so, they added a lander checkout mission next year to the Artemis program's lineup of launches.But long-time NASA veteran Wayne Hale, who spent decades as a flight controller and space shuttle program manager before his retirement, thinks that timeline is going to be challenging. "I kind of worry about whether it will be before 2030 or not, but hopefully not long after that," says Hale. He says NASA's new roadmap for the moon, unveiled last week at the agency's headquarters, is ambitious, involving multiple robotic missions, a lunar base, and power station development. "All of these are good but, to use a cliche — show me the money," Hale noted, adding that he hopes Congress will provide the necessary funds, but he's skeptical. NASA's return to the moon has essentially been in the works since 2004, when President George W. Bush gave a speech announcing that NASA would finish building the international space station, retire its fleet of aging space shuttles, and make its new focus the moon, as a stepping stone to Mars. "It's really the same program, with a little tweaking along the way, that we are trying to execute 22 years later," notes John Logsdon, a space policy historian and professor emeritus at George Washington University."It's taken forever." In the 1960s the space race with the Soviet Union seemed existential, says Logsdon, and this generated an urgency that just doesn't exist for the current moon program."This is just something that seems the logical next thing to do, but not with any great commitment to getting it done on any kind of reasonable schedule," says Logsdon. China is also seeking to put people on the moon, and some lawmakers in Congress and officials at NASA have tried to use that as a new space race that could inspire more funding and support. Most people alive today have no memory of being able to look up at the moon and know that astronauts are there. Recent surveys suggest wide support among Americans for NASA's return to the moon, says Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator for the Apollo collection at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. "The Artemis program is actually more popular than the Apollo program was," says Muir-Harmony."In general, the polls suggest that today, Americans are more supportive of the program than they were in the 1960s."California's diminished fossil-fuel sector has made it especially vulnerable to the oil shock of the Israeli-U.S. war with Iran — and to interventions from the Trump administration that could delay or even reverse California’s trend toward renewable energy. As other economies clamp down on fuel exports, it’s possible the state could face even higher crude prices or a shortage of gasoline.California is home to some of the world’s most aggressive climate policies, including a tax on carbon emissions and a strict requirement to adopt clean-burning fuels such as “renewable diesel” made from fats and oils. Over the last 20 years, California’s production of crude oil has fallen by around half, and many oil wells have shut down. The state now imports almost two-thirds of its crude oil from tanker ships, which is cheaper and more practical because it is separated by steep mountains from oil-producing zones such as Texas.Two weeks after the war in Iran began, the Department of Energy moved to restart a long-defunct California offshore oil pipeline owned by the company Sable Offshore. The order from Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited “California’s reliance on foreign oil vulnerable to geopolitical disruption,” with “a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.” The pipeline has been shut down since a 2015 oil spill that killed hundreds of animals, and state officials had not given it clearance to reopen. The addition of new supply from Sable could lower costs for refineries but beyond Sable there aren’t many good options for increasing crude supplies in the short term.California has managed a remarkable feat over the past 20 years. Even as its economy has grown to overtake Germany’s as thehas fallen by around two-thirds. This has happened due to some of the world’s most aggressive climate policies, including a tax on carbon emissions and a strict requirement to adopt clean-burning fuels such as “ During the same period, California’s production of crude oil has also fallen by around half, and many oil wells have shut down. The state nowof its crude oil from tanker ships, which is cheaper and more practical because it is separated by steep mountains from oil-producing zones such as Texas. Some of the state’s largest gasoline and diesel refineries are also shutting down amid declining demand, which will make the state dependent on imports of refined gasoline, too. The state’s diminished fossil-fuel sector has made it especially vulnerable to the oil shock of the Israeli-U.S. war with Iran — and to interventions from the Trump administration that could delay or even reverse California’s trend toward renewable energy. Gas prices in the state havein recent weeks, the highest prices in the country. As other economies clamp down on fuel exports, it’s possible the state could face even higher crude prices or a shortage of gasoline.arguing that the federal government can use the Defense Production Act to preempt state law in the event of energy emergencies. The Department of Energy then moved to restart a long-defunct California offshore oil pipeline owned by the company Sable Offshore. The order from Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited “California’s reliance on foreign oil vulnerable to geopolitical disruption,” with “a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.” The pipelinesince a 2015 oil spill that killed hundreds of animals, and state officials had not given it clearance to reopen. On the very next day, the pipeline reopened. California For now, the Sable pipeline is ramping up to process around 50,000 barrels a day, which would provide around 3 percent of the state’s daily oil needs. Chevron has already said it will buy and refinefrom the pipeline starting in April. The addition of new supply from Sable could lower costs for refineries, said Mike Umbro, an energy entrepreneur who runs Californians for Energy and Science, an educational nonprofit that advocates for increased oil production. Beyond Sable, though, there aren’t many good options for increasing crude supplies in the short term. “Sacramento’s saying, ‘You don’t have a long-term future here,’ so the companies aren’t going to dump a bunch of money in to increase production,” Umbro said.from another offshore oil company to frack undersea oil wells in order to increase production. The administration has also heldthat would limit drilling near homes and schools, both measures that would open up more onshore oil production in the state. But more upstream oil production won’t help resolve the current fuel crunch. Even as some oil producers consider pumping more crude, no one has suggested building more refineries. In fact, Chevron and other large refinery owners have warned that California’s “cap-and-invest” program — a carbon tax that gets more expensive as time goes on — could soon drive them out of the state. The California Air Resources Board, the state’s climate regulator, is supposed to debut new rules for the carbon tax later this year, which would reduce the amount of free emissions refineries would be allowed to emit and make refineries less likely to stay in California. The oil industry’s argument against these regulations follows the same logic as the Trump administration’s. “Continued erosion of California’s refining capacity risks increased reliance on imported fuels that are slower to arrive, more exposed to global supply disruptions, and less reliable during emergencies or periods of heightened geopolitical risk,” Andy Walz, a senior executive at Chevron, wrote in a letter to state leaders. At the CERAWeek energy conference this week in Texas, Walz said he believes the state could soon have a shortage of gasoline and jet fuel, and that Chevron might close its own refineries within a decade. Those refineries account for 30% of capacity, and losing them could cause huge supply shortages for Bay Area drivers, Central Valley farmers, and Democrats and environmental groups in the state, meanwhile, say that the refiners may be crying wolf about the state’s carbon tax. They see the Iran crisis as more evidence that the state should lean harder into its transition away from oil. Indeed, as Katelyn Roedner Sutter, the California state director for the Environmental Defense Fund, sees it, the current gas spike may only speed up the state’s energy transition by making electric vehicles even more attractive. Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest budget proposed a subsidy for first-time EV buyers, designed to replace the repealed Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, and she said the Iran crisis could strengthen the governor’s case. “I do think the war actually makes it even more important to move forward with this, because I think it just underscores how vulnerable we are, being so dependent on fossil fuels,” she said. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more atTickets to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will go on sale Thursday. The much-anticipated drop is the first opportunity to get seats at Olympic events including the opening and closing ceremonies — and it's for locals only.Fans with eligible Southern California or Oklahoma City ZIP codes will be notified via email if they're selected for a slot to buy tickets in the pre-sale, which runs April 2 to 6. After that, fans from around the world will have their first chance to get tickets from April 9 to 19.The much-anticipated drop is the first opportunity to get seats at Olympic events, including the opening and closing ceremonies — and it's for locals only. The sale will be open to those whoFans with eligible Southern California or Oklahoma City ZIP codes will be notified via email if they're selected for a slot to buy tickets in the pre-sale, which runs April 2 to 6. After that, fans from around the world will have their first chance to get tickets from April 9 to 19. Those who are chosen from the draw will be notified 48 hours ahead of their time slot to buy tickets online, and will have two days to select and purchase their tickets. That means people will know as early as Tuesday if they've been selected to buy tickets.If you aren't chosen for the first ticket drop, there will be more in the months to come. Plus, come 2027 there will be a re-sale market for tickets.If you get an email that you've been selected to buy Olympics tickets, it will include the time window you have to purchase tickets and a link to the website where you can buy them. You'll have 48 hours to buy tickets, but LA28 recommends logging in as soon as you can to get the best ticket options. Once tickets are in your cart, you'll have 30 minutes to buy them. LA28 warned fans that they could encounter online queues when buying tickets. Some people reported this when registering for tickets, too. The ticket site will allow fans to search events by sport, venue and location. Once you choose an event, you'll book in a seating category — but actual seat numbers will be assigned later on. If you purchase tickets in the locals pre-sale, the billing address for the card you buy the tickets with will need to have one of the qualifying local ZIP codes. Here in Southern California, that includes people inPrices for Olympics tickets will vary widely. The cheapest tickets will be $28 a pop, with the priciest tickets upwards of $1,000, according to Olympic organizers. The majority of tickets to the Olympic Games will run into triple digits. According to LA28, half the tickets will be more than $200 and around 5% of tickets will be more than $1,000. In total, there will be 14 million tickets available across the Olympics and Paralympics.According to the video, there will also be standing room-only tickets for some events.If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.The Koreatown Senior and Community Center will revive its free lunch program later this year thanks to a new partnership with the YMCA.The Koreatown Senior & Community Center is bringing back its free lunch program for seniors, this time with its longest guaranteed run yet.The center is partnering with the YMCA under a two-year agreement, which would allow the program — for the first time — to run continuously for that long. In the past, the center’s free lunch program typically lasted only a few months at a time before funding cuts forced it to scale back or stop temporarily. If all goes as planned, the program is expected to relaunch by late April.The Koreatown Senior & Community Center is bringing back its free lunch program for seniors, this time with its longest guaranteed run yet. The center is partnering with the YMCA under a two-year agreement, which would allow the program — for the first time — to run continuously for that long. In the past, the center’s free lunch program typically lasted only a few months at a time before funding cuts forced it to scale back or stop temporarily.“We’re committed to identifying funding beyond the two years,” said Mario Valenzuela, chief mission advancement officer at the YMCA. that some senior centers were cutting back on meals as pandemic-era funding expired and longer-term funding looked uncertain. Valenzuela said that across the YMCA’s 29 food distribution sites in the county, seniors now make up the majority of those seeking assistance.to address food insecurity, and Valenzuela said the Koreatown senior lunch program is one way those funds are being used. The center launched its free lunch program in January 2024 with about 200 meals a day, funded by the city’s Department of Aging. But the number of meals steadily declined, from 200 to 50, before the program ended in early January. Hyun-ok Lee, president of the board of the Koreatown Senior & Community Center, said the sudden halt was difficult for people who had come to rely on the meals. “When the meal service suddenly stopped, a lot of seniors and people in the community really felt it,” Lee said. After the program stopped, the center began looking for new funding sources. That effort eventually led to a connection with the YMCA, facilitated by Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, according to both the center and the YMCA. “It was important for the Assemblymember to ensure that meals are culturally sensitive, especially for the seniors in our district, so we were able to connect the YMCA with KSCC and reinstitute the daily distribution of Korean lunch boxes at KSCC,” Nina Suh-Toma, Gonzalez’s field representative, said. Valenzuela said the organization stepped in after hearing from multiple senior centers that funding for services was being cut. The Koreatown senior center’s free lunch program will cost between $210,000 and $250,000 a year and will initially provide 100 meals a day from Monday to Friday, with the goal of eventually increasing that number to 200. Valenzuela said the program is part of a broader shift at the YMCA to work more directly in communities. “We can no longer just focus within our four walls,” he said. “We really have to meet the community where they’re at.” The YMCA and the center are still working out the details of the partnership, including how meals will be distributed. Valenzuela said they’re currently looking for a food vendor that can provide Korean meals that are both culturally appropriate and meet nutritional guidelines.“I think the emerging need is there are a lot of cuts coming down the pipeline particularly to social services and the most vulnerable population right now are seniors,” he said. “We’re seeing it across L.A. County.”A young Felicitas Nuñez while she was attending San Diego State College, now known as San Diego State University, where Teatro Chicano was born.One of the many tools of the farmworker movement in the 1960s was Teatro Campesino, a traveling theater troupe that told the plight of the farmworkers through “actos,” or short skits.It was a mostly male-dominated space until a group of Chicanas came together to tell the stories of women who were also part of the civil rights and farmworker movement.Teatro Chicana was the product of Felicitas Nuñez, Delia Ravelo, Laura Garcia and dozens of other first generation college students attending San Diego State College, now known as San Diego State University, in the early 1970s. Their work is documented in the memoirOne of the many tools of the farmworker movement in the 1960s was Teatro Campesino, a traveling theater troupe that told the plight of the farmworkers through “actos,” or short skits. It was a mostly male-dominated space until a group of Chicanas came together to tell the stories of women who were also part of the civil rights and farmworker movement. Teatro Chicana was the product of Felicitas Nuñez, Delia Ravelo, Laura Garcia and dozens of other first generation college students attending San Diego State College, now known as San Diego State University, in the early 1970s. Their work is documented in the memoir“We protested the action and behavior of the males in MEChA because we didn’t agree with their disrespect, abuse and a lot of that was coming from the older Chicanos like people that were already professors, counselors and in administration,” Nuñez said. One of their first performances was a seminar that the women put together for their mothers who visited them on campus called“We just wanted to present how a young woman wanted to get out of a traditional home, very religious kind of atmosphere,” Nuñez said. “But towards the end, you know, the Chicana struggles through getting out of the house, struggles in college, and then struggles within the movimiento Chicano. She makes up her mind that she's gonna get educated regardless of being put down.” Teatro Chicana performed at a UFW convention, in fields, anti-war demonstrations, high schools and anywhere they could. Their plays likeOf course, it’s hard to talk about the farmworker movement without mentioning the late César Chávez, who was recently accused of sexually assaulting girls and women. Nunez and Garcia said the news was devastating but not that surprising. “ If you look at the women in the teatro, out of the 17 women that wrote their memoir about 80% had been sexually molested, or abused within their families or a neighbor,” said Garcia. “ We need to talk about it in order to stop it.”